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Personal Injury Blog

Posted By Chaikin, Sherman, Cammarata & Siegel, P.C. || 5-Jan-2015

By: Allan M. Siegel

A news story that had originally garnered media attention because of the
rather odd details is back in the news due to an equally peculiar development.
The original case involved a 17-year old boy who was arrested for "sexting"
an explicit video to his 15-year-old girlfriend. The case gained media
attention when it was revealed that the Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney
told the boy's attorney that the boy needed to plead guilty or police
would obtain a warrant for pictures of the boy's privates for comparison
to the evidence from the teen's cell phone. The Washington Post posted
an article about the case on July 9, 2014, that included a paragraph quoting
the boy's attorney saying she spoke with a detective on the case and
that the idea of taking pictures and using software to compare pictures
was crazy. After a couple weeks of media attention, the story seemed to
die down with the boy being convicted on August 1, and being placed on
probation with the case potentially being dismissed in 2015 if the boy
stayed out of trouble and off social media for a year.

The case is back in the news because the lead investigator in the case
has filed a defamation suit against the boy's attorney, claiming that she defamed him by calling the investigation "crazy"
and that she misstated what the detective told her about the case. The
detective claimed that the statements by the attorney implied he had conceived
of the idea and desired obtaining the photographs, and that he would be
involved in the taking and comparing the photographs. A press release
by the Manassas City Police Department put much of the responsibility
for the picture idea on the Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney and
that the officers were only following his direction.

A libel suit by an officer against an attorney is very rare, and many legal and press experts had never heard of it happening. In
fact one database that catalogs defamation cases filed by police officers
searched by a Washington Post reporter appeared to only show one case
involving an officer filing a defamation suit against an attorney. The
experts also doubted that the officer had much chance of succeeding on
his claim because of First Amendment protections and, noting that statements
of opinion, including hyperbole, are a defense to defamation.

While it is important for attorneys, reporters, and other members of the
public to be accurate in their claims regarding police behavior, it is
equally important that police officers are able to be held accountable
for their actions. At times the only way to ensure this is by drawing
attention to their behavior and actions through the press and criticism.
Other times it may be necessary to file a lawsuit to not only compensate
the victims of their misconduct, but also to help prevent such abuses
from occurring in the future. That's why it can be so important to
seek competent legal counsel if you or someone you love has been injured
as a result of the police misconduct. The attorneys as Chaikin, Sherman,
Cammarata, & Siegel, P.C., have years of experience representing people
who have been injured as a result of police misconduct. It is important
to hold police officers accountable for their actions. It helps ensure
that other officers and police departments can avoid committing the same
errors, making us all safer.

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